The Gnostic heresy and its offshoots were fascinating. Rather like the sovcits, they claimed to have special knowledge that ordinary folk lacked! Ultimately their gnosis was just a special brand of ignorance.

Christianity is not really monotheistic and could not be. With a single perfect god doing everything there are no gripping stories. It's a drama with no other actors and no audience, nobody to interact with or talk about. So there are minor deities hidden around: angels, the devil (boo! hiss!),, Jesus, Mary the horsemen of the Apocalypse, cherubim, possibly saints, etc.

I am curious how the people of the Norse, Roman/Greek etc. religions actually viewed their gods. Those pantheons have a rich narrative of stories, drama, rivalries, flawed personalities, locations, battles, love, hate and only a limited notion that the mighty gods might have any interest in ordinary mortals, unless leading an expedition that met with a god's approval.

I'm sure the hoi polloi must have regarded the whole thing with ambivalence: it was a shared mythology to bind society together and good fun for temples, feasts, etc., but their gods gave little guidance on personal behavior and only intervened capriciously.

Changing the topic slightly: it's always amusing as an atheist when one hears a priest asserting "all religions are false, except mine." There are thousands of religions in the world, so I agree 99.9% with that priest; my only emendation would be to remove the words "except mine."

Years ago I had an interesting discussion with some Christians in my family about Christianity being a polytheistic religion. They don't buy it of course nor do most Christians. They also didn't like it when I pointed out that the term Holy Trinity is not used in the Bible.

Earlier this year, the national party supply outlet Party City launched a Ramadan-specific line for the first time. The chain, with 850 U.S. stores, sold the party goods online and then in select stores, including one in Sugar Land. The company quickly ran out and is working to restock.

“We listened to our customers who were requesting Ramadan decorations and recognized an opportunity to fill this underserved category of party good items,” Party City’s president of retail Ryan Vero said in an email statement.

I'm glad. My greatnieces are Muslim. Decorations like these make them feel more a part of society.

"The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press." - Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, feminist and founder with others of NAACP.